Healthy in Paranoid Times
by purple-fiddle
Summary: These dreams were as real the scars on his back and the past couldn't be changed - or outrun. Set five years after "Long Time Gone."
1. Prologue

Author Notes: Crossover with Okami, but I'm just cherry picking. No special knowledge of the game is required. This story comes out of a dream I had awhile ago and the desire to answer the question: just how did Sam activate the All Spark anyway? Title comes from CD by Our Lady Peace of the same title. Set five years after the prequel "Long Time Gone." You do not have to read that story to understand this one or vice versa. They're just in the same 'verse' so to speak.

Prologue

_August 2009_

It had started out so innocently—just a long drive with Bumblebee at unattainable-for-non-sentient-cars speeds to celebrate his graduation from high school and his freedom for the summer. After roughly thirty minutes of joy riding, he noticed that Bee seemed to be...irritated, for lack of a better word...about something.

"'s something wrong, Bee?" Sam had asked, idly drawing abstract patterns on his steering wheel as Bumblebee sped down a deserted dirt road.

"Everything is fine, Sam," Bumblebee had replied in that soft British accent of his and swiftly changed the subject. "What are your plans for the summer?"

To say it bothered him was an understatement, but Sam had allowed Bumblebee to take control of the conversation not wanting to ruin the serenity of the day with an argument. Sam knew he was nothing if not persistent and he vowed from that point on, every time he got the feeling something was wrong with Bee, he'd just ask. No matter how many times he asked or how many different ways he asked, however, the answer never changed.

Eventually, he noticed that the occasional vague feeling of irritation he felt from Bee was being replicated, whether rightly or wrongly, in the other Autobots. He asked them what was wrong and would get a variation on the answer that Bee gae him. They never seemed to have a problem with Mikaela. When he asked her about it one day while they were washing down some parts for Ratchet, she just arched her brow and asked him gently if he was touched in the head. That had led to a massive water fight that had only been broken up when Ratchet had thrown a wrench at them. Maybe it was his imagination, but Sam though the medic had aimed at him.

Sam wracked his brains but he couldn't come up with a reason why every seem so _angry_ at him. All of his questions were rebuffed time and time again. After awhile he began to spend less and less time with the Autobots to see if that would help the situation but it just made the whole thing worse. Even _Glenn _noticed something was going and asked Sam about it. All Sam could do was shrug his shoulders and reply with an anxious, "I don't know, man." Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Bumblebee was looking at him with an undecipherable expression on his face.

It all came to a head when he asked Bee to take him to the look out ne last time before he headed off to college. They hadn't yet discussed whether or not Bee would be joining him at college. Bee had made no mention of his upcoming trip or about wanting to go with him to Pennsylvania. In fact, every time Sam brought the subject up, Bumblebee would immediately change it. Sam was becoming desperately afraid the Autobot would say "no" and that was why Bee wasn't allowing him to ask the question. His plan that night, such as it was, was to ambush him when they were alone at the look out and not accept anything but a "yes" or a "no".

They never made it.

Half-way there Bumblebee suddenly unhooked his seatbelt, swung open the door, and flung Sam out. Sam landed with a yelp, cracking his head on the ground and feeling his shoulder wrench out of its socket. He laid there in a daze, unable to get his mid to focus on anything. He could hear the sounds of fighting behind him, but he couldn't quite shake off his injury and get t his feet.

"Look out!" Bumblebee shouted and Sam jerked towards the sound hissing in pain at the movement, then tried to gain his feet. He fell back down to his hands and knees with a sharp scream as he jarred his shoulder. He could see a dark shape near him and scrambled towards it, arm help protectively to his chest, hoping that it would provide enough cover. Bee said something else, but it didn't sound like English to Sam. Didn't sound like Cybertronian either, but he wasn't sure that he was the best person to make that call. There was a thunderous roar and then Sam knew nothing else.

When he came around, he woke up laying on something warm and hard and...vibrating? Maybe the tremors he felt were just himself, he reflected, the cold desert air chilling his skin. He blinked away the dark spots in his eyes and saw he was very near something colored a very bright yellow. He tried to shit up onto his elbows but his shoulder exploded in agony. He yelped and fell back down, his right hand clutching at his shoulder. His head rolled to the side and noted he was laying on something dark and felt like metal. They kind of looked like hands and he could see what looked like joints beneath his body.

"Sam." A hushed voice said and he shifted until he was looking at something that looked vaguely like a face. "Are you alright?"

He groaned in response, trying to jump start his brain. It was like trying to think through molasses.

"Sam?" The voice was starting to sound a little panicked.

He rolled his head back up to look at the being that he assumed was speaking to him. The face that floated in front of him was strangely familiar. He abruptly realized that he had absolutely _no idea_ where he was or what he was doing there. He gasped for breath, panic and pain making his breathing ragged. He struggled to sit up again as the voice yelled, "Sam!" at him, but failed again and this time when he went down he let the darkness take him all the way.

-+-

_September 2019_

Sam was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming but it felt like a memory. The world was awash in gray except for when it flashed to tan and then the dream changed. Sometimes things fell down—cut in two, sometimes fires burned and water soothed, sometimes the winds changed and blew fiercely, knocking things down, and sometimes things grew. And sometimes, every so often, the sun rose and the moon slept.

He experienced the world at a different angle in his dreams. He saw hills and mountains. He saw rivers and streams. He saw prairies and deserts. He saw forests and jungles. He saw the oceans. He saw them together. He saw them separate. The characteristics of the land melted into one another until they were nothing remarkable. He experienced extreme hot and cold and temperatures in between. He experienced the mildest of days to the most ferocious of storms. He was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He was everything and nothing. And he was running. He ran across the open meadow through the wildflowers and past the trees. Shades of gray where the should have been bright color, the world flying by, blurry and indistinct. Becoming featureless but no less beloved. There were long stretches where he couldn't see, smell, hear, or taste anything but he could feel the warmth of the Earth and the pulse of something no Earth but equally comfortable.

These dreams were always shattered by the presence of Barricade and Frenzy, sliding from the maybe-memories to actual memories seamlessly. The nightmares were always the same and never deviated from what he remembered and could never forget. In these dreams, he felt fear and pain, he saw everything in over-bright clor, the red of his blood and Barricade's optics the brightest colors of all. He could no longer feel the Earth and her pleasures and the thrum of the something-not-Earth was gone. These nightmares shook his soul and caused his feet to run, but it was different from the way he ran before. Here he ran through cities, through people, the wilderness far away from him, though he beggedwishedprayed that the moment would freeze and he could finallyfinally_finally_ destroy Barricade in a single stroke, these dreams never changed. They were as real as the scars on his back and they were memories and the past couldn't be changed. Or outrun.

When he awoke with screams clawing at his throat, for the briefest of moments through the haze of tears, he though he saw flowers dying.


	2. Chapter 1

Sam woke just as the sun started to edge the deep blue sky with it's warm glow. The morning dawned cold with dew on the grass and fog rolling over the ground. He rolled out from under the picnic table and snatched up his backpack and blanket listening to the grumpy mumbles of the others as park officials rousted the homeless from their rest. Sam was already slipping away from them and had gone into the shadows before they got to his particular table. It was no fun to be harassed by park officials and their dogs, to be woken up just as you were falling asleep. Sam glanced back--squinting to see more clearly in the dark--and saw one of the dogs staring intently at him, tail raised and slowly moving back and forth almost involuntarily. Sam walked faster hoping to escape the notice of the dog's handlers. He didn't feel like getting arrested today.

He kept his single blanket wrapped around him as he wandered towards the boardwalk, idly flicking bugs off dirty fleece. Sam wished that it was closer to winter so he wouldn't have to worry about insects even if it meant dealing with the cold himself. Being dirty was a big enough problem--he didn't want to have to deal with bugs too.

As he made his way down the boardwalk, backpack heavy on his back and blanket tight around his shoulders, he pondered his next move. Something within him told him to go back east, but he wasn't sure if he was up to facing Will again so soon. Something else told him to stay, a darker, more sinister voice that sounded like Barricade and twinged in his shoulder and spine whenever he heard it. This voice only sounded when he was near the Autobots and always steered him back to them.

(Once, when he was high and not aware of what was going on around him and what he was doing, the voice led him directly to a bot that he hadn't recognized but who clearly recognized him. He learned two things that day - 1) adrenaline was fantastic at getting a person from soaring in the clouds to stone cold sober and 2) he was never doing drugs again no matter how much he might want to forget. Sam had bolted as soon as he realized that the cop car in front of him had no driver and while the words "To punish and enslave" were not visible, it didn't mean it wasn't Barricade. He had plowed through a crowd of pedestrians and dashed out into the street without thinking. It was a minor miracle that he hadn't actually been hit by a car. Sam had fled through the streets with sirens wailing behind before finding a subway entrance and losing the mech to its depths. He had blown the last of his money on the subway ticket and the train ticket he purchased to get out of the city as quickly as possible.)

Hunger tugged at his conscious and Sam shook himself out of his memories. What had happened after that was not something he liked to remember. Suffice to say, there were always consequences for ignoring the Barricade-voice, always. But he was still resisting it, God only knew how or why, he kept on resisting it. His shoulder twinged in warning as he forced himself to stop and turn around. The Barricade-voice growled low in the back of his mind but Sam ignored it and took off in the opposite direction. Maybe it _was_ time to head back East. Will would be glad to see that he had survived yet another year.

As he walked he thought he saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of this eye. Sam swallowed, his mouth suddenly going dry. It had taken him a long time to stop looking for Bee in his travels. He never noted the colors of the others in the vehicles he saw, but yellow always caught his eye. He wondered if it was because of the way he had left. That night was hazy at best, his dislocated shoulder and pounding head dominating most of his memories. Sam remembered vaguely thinking _he needed to get away, fast, oh God they're coming_ and then nothing, until he found himself stumbling to a halt beneath a large rock formation, his shoulder twisted back into place, dying of thirst, wondering how he had gotten there and where he was going. He'd been running ever since. Sam hadn't spared much thought to those he left behind. But sometimes, he would see yellow out of the corner of his eye and think of them, of Bee.

His feet turned in that direction, unbidden, and the Barricade-voice fell silent.

-+-

Over the years, time had become very fluid for Sam. Oh, he noticed the passing of months, the passing of years, but the passing of days? Not so much. Sometimes he would wake up and find himself states away from where had fallen asleep. Days would disappear without him noticing anything beyond the fact that he was hungrier and dirtier than he had been before. Occasionally he was bloodier than he had been before. And then there were the times that stretched on and on for what seemed like years, when only seconds had passed. It became easier to note the passing of time through the passing of seasons, through how much was in the bank account Will had set up.

Sam woke to the persistent _beep-beep_ of a heart monitor. At least, that's what he's assuming the rhythmic beeping sound was. He could also feel, though he tried hard to ignore it, the pitch and sway of a moving vehicle. He tried not to alter his breathing or give away the fact that he was no longer asleep, but it was hard - Sam could feel the panic building.

_It doesn't have to mean anything,_ he thought, a touch frantically. _Some nice people could have found me laid out on the hood of their car and called for an ambulance. Or the police. It didn't_ have _to be Bee. It hasn't been him in the past. Oh, God, don't let it be them..._ He heard the beeping pick up it's pace. _Yeah, that's totally a heart monitor._

It wouldn't be the first time he had been helped in such a way. Most people just turned a blind eye to the homeless and Sam found that it was best to let them but sometimes a good Samaritan would come along and try to help him out. In the beginning it didn't really mean much, all he had to do should he find himself in a hospital somewhere was sneak away from everyone. It changed after he and Will came to their agreement. Now, whenever he ended up in a hospital he would be forced to deal with a frantic Will.

Unfortunately this wasn't a hospital.

"I know you're awake, Sam." _Oh, God, that sounded like Ratchet._ "Sam?"

"Oh, God, oh God," he gulped half laughing, half crying and one hundred percent hysterical. He began to struggle against the blankets wrapped around him, kicking out his legs and trying to sit up. Trying to get away.

"I-I have to go. Oh, god, I have to get out of here." He muttered to himself and managed to wrench his arm free of the blanket, scrabbling at the IV line and pulling it from his arm. Blood dripped down onto the blanket from where the IV line had been torn from his skin.

Suddenly a hand gripped his arm painfully and then he was pushed down into a prone position on the bed. "Sam! What are you doing? Stop that at once! You're injuring yourself further!"

He only struggled harder, shoving back at the figure looming over him. When he smacked the person above him across the face as hard as he could and the man didn't even flinch he knew that the Eric Foreman look alike was somehow an extension of Ratchet. And without ever having been inside Ratchet's alt mode he knew that's exactly where he was; in the back of his mind he could hear the Barricade-voice laughing wildly. Triumphantly.

_I'm going to get you, boy!_ The heart monitor squealed as his heart rate ratcheted up and Sam felt dizzy, sick with what was happening. It abruptly flat lined as he disconnected himself from the machine.

"Sam! Get a hold of yourself!" That was definitely Ratchet at his most imperious. He reached towards Sam again.

"No! No - get away from me!" He hissed back, slapping the "hands" away. Ratchet's...hologram?...glared at him incredulously and Sam could hear Cybertronian being snarled at him before abruptly vanishing. Sam took that moment to fling himself completely out of the bed, hitting the ground and looking for his shoes. He'd look like an escaped mental patient in the borrowed scrubs but that was fine for now. He just needed to get out. He searched frantically for several moments before giving up on the shoes. He could always find new shoes. He took another minute to determine that his backpack was missing too. It didn't matter - it could all be replaced. He had gotten quite good at acquiring things he needed - shoes, clothes, food. It helped when most people thought you were a crazy, homeless war vet. The dog tags he had stolen from Will all those years ago helped, too.

Abandoning his search, Sam flung himself at the back doors of the ambulance scrabbling at the door handle. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd do if he actually managed to get the door open beyond becoming a smear on the pavement, but he had to try. He had to get out before they caught up with him again. A flash of yellow caught his eye outside the window before they abruptly darkened and his fear threatened to choke him. He couldn't lead them to the Autobots, he just couldn't. Not after all this time.

"No," he moaned again, realizing that Ratchet was keeping the doors locked. He couldn't even move the handle. Sam pounded on them uselessly, slamming his body against them to no little affect. He kept it up until the the pain in his hands and shoulder became too much to bear. He gave them one last hit with his fist, before sliding down to the floor and curling up in on himself, crying helplessly.

"Please, Ratchet, please. Let me out. I can't stay, I can't. Please let me go. I have to go," he begged, his voice broken by sobs. Sam hated that he was reduced to begging, hated that he was begging Ratchet of all people. "Please don't make me go back. I can't go back. I can't, I can't."

Sam watched in horror as Ratchet's hologram reappeared and grimly pulled a syringe from a drawer on the far wall. Sam wrapped his arms around his middle and put his forehead against his knees, body shaking, eyes squeezing shut. He pulled in even tighter when Ratchet gripped his right arm trying to drag it away from his body.

"Please don't, Ratchet." Sam kept whispering, shaking, tightening his arms around his body, trying to hold it all in. "Please, let me go. Please? Please don't, pleasepleaseplease..."

He never felt himself being picked up and put back onto the bed.


End file.
